


blood and bone

by jdphoenix



Series: needle and thread [2]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-31
Updated: 2016-10-31
Packaged: 2018-08-28 05:33:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8433706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jdphoenix/pseuds/jdphoenix
Summary: Not even superspies see everything. The events of "needle and thread" from Jemma's perspective.





	1. Miami

**Author's Note:**

> This isn't gonna be the entire fic rewritten from Jemma's POV, just snippets here and there of what's going on in her head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set in early chapter 2 of needle and thread, when Grant was still recovering.

 

She promised to kill him two months ago and now she’s saving his life. And why? Because _her_ life is being threatened? So much for her moral convictions.

She replaces the cooling cloth on his forehead as a new song starts up on the radio. She can’t understand the words, as it’s in Spanish, but she pretends it’s about happier times and lets it remind her of better days. The sticky heat is already a reminder of their mission in Mexico last year and, though Ward wasn’t injured there, she pretends he was, that she’s keeping him alive while they wait for rescue.

The cloth serves to hide the most obvious of his scars and she can easily pretend she’s saving the life of a friend, rather than a murderer. Again. This will be the fourth time (fifth if she splits keeping him alive on the boat with saving him from the subsequent infection) she’s saved his life since he tried to end hers.

It’s easier to pretend they’re in Mexico.

Perhaps that’s her mistake because when he starts moaning in his sleep and moving his still fragile body, she shushes him gently and drags soothing fingers down his sweat-soaked cheek. His eyes are glassy under the half-open lids, unable to focus on her. He manages to get his hand off the cot and, after some trial and error, rests his palm against her hair. She catches his arm, trying to steady him; he really shouldn’t be awake at all, the state he’s in.

“Skye,” he sighs. Something in her heart snaps like an over-plucked guitar string.

His arm goes limp and she untangles his fingers from her hair so he doesn’t hurt her worse than he already has. She’s always known he loved Skye and the only reason that should hurt her at all is because Skye doesn’t deserve that kind of obsession. It should be pity for her friend that’s tugging at her heart right now, not envy.

She thought she was over this. She thought she’d cured herself of him. 

She lays his arm on the cot beside him, sure to leave the scars face up this time; she won’t be forgetting again. 

Another song starts up, this one more upbeat than the last. “Turn the radio off,” she calls to this afternoon’s guard. “He hates to hear music when he’s feeling ill.”

 


	2. Savannah

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not the Savannah you'd expect.
> 
> What Jemma was up to during chapter 12 of needle and thread.

She didn’t see much of Savannah the first time she was here - at least not much of it out from under Ward’s thumb - but it feels familiar. Perhaps it’s the city’s architecture or the people or just her own pathetic feelings.

Anytime during the two days since she last saw Ward and Kara, she could have called for help. There were plenty of people - first in the bus depot back in Kansas City and then on the Greyhound she took back here - who would have happily lent their mobile to a woman in need.

But she didn’t ask. Instead, she spent nearly a full day sitting on an uncomfortable bench, trying to decide what to do, before finally buying her ticket. A ticket to a city Ward’s already been to, one he’s sure to stay away from for fear of being recognized. She’s _protecting_ him.

And maybe herself as well. She knows that when she gets back to the Playground, when she’s surrounded again by her friends - by good, decent human beings - she’ll realize how horrible he is. She’ll stop thinking about his coming back for her and his going after Martinez for her as kindnesses and see them for the manipulations they must have been.

(Maybe killing Martinez was, but what could he possibly have gained in Miami? She was nothing but a burden to him after that and he had to know she would be.)

She shakes herself free of those thoughts and grips her bag a little tighter as she passes under the noses of a pair of police officers. She still has the gun Ward gave her (he gave her a weapon to defend herself!) in her bag and the knife in her pocket, she’d really rather not garner any undue attention from law enforcement.

“Hey!”

Her heart clenches in her chest as she hears the officer come up behind her. He passes her by and pulls the door open ahead of her.

“It sticks,” he says with a smile and a shrug. It makes him look very young and very kind. She thinks about Trip and Fitz and all the good, kind men she’s known in her life.

“Thank you,” she says, meaning it sincerely and for far more than the door inside the depot. The reminder that there are good people in the world - not just men who are broken and twisted with moral compasses that turn whichever way the wind is blowing - is precisely what she needed.

Ward is a monster and weeks alone with him have twisted her own perceptions of reality. She shouldn’t be fearing the recalibration of her own moral compass, she should be _eager_ for it. The sooner it’s done, the sooner she can stop caring what happens to the bastard.

She’s doing better already as she makes a beeline for the payphone by the bathrooms. A few more thoughts like that and soon she won’t be thinking of him fondly at all.

She barely pays attention as she dials the number she used while undercover, which is a mistake as she must have dialed it wrong. There can be no other reason a number meant to directly reach the director of SHIELD would ring a whole ten times.

As the eleventh begins, she hangs up and tries again, more carefully this time. Her heart begins to pound as the ringing continues.

On nine, she hangs up, terrified of hearing one more.

Skye. Skye would never be without her phone. She’ll answer.

Skye’s phone goes straight to voicemail, the smooth computerized voice informing Jemma that the phone - which is meant to work anywhere on planet Earth and has a battery life of more than six months - is out of service.

Jemma’s hand shakes as she returns the phone to its cradle. Something is very, _very_ wrong.

She tries Fitz and May and Coulson again, his cell this time. When she tries Trip’s, the computerized voice comes up the same as Skye’s, but it cuts out so that he can identify himself. He gives the code phrase she knows means he’s on assignment and it isn’t safe to carry something so personal.

That’s everyone she knew before the Playground.

Jemma lied to Kara back in Kansas City. She didn’t really believe all that she said about it not being safe for Kara in SHIELD. She was afraid that if Kara came, in her fragile state, that she’d be manipulated into betraying Ward.

It was laughable - as if either of them could betray the man who carted them across the country as witnesses to his crimes - but it’s the truth. Jemma’s decision to leave by herself had nothing at all to do with Bobbi’s supposed dealings with HYDRA because Jemma doesn’t believe Bobbi would ever do such a thing. She _can’t_. If Bobbi’s a traitor, if - again - the team has let a viper into its midst, she thinks it might kill her. Because if Grant Ward is not the exception to the rule - if he _is_ the rule - then why is she standing here now, alone?

She dials Bobbi’s number, taking care that her fingers do not shake even a little as she presses each number on the keypad. It will ring and ring, same as the rest. She’s sure of it. Whatever’s pulled the others away will be affecting her too. Because she’s their friend, a member of the team. Because she’s SHIELD.

“Hello?” Bobbi’s voice sounds crisp and clear after only the second ring.

Jemma’s arm rests at the top of the payphone, over the empty cradle. Her forehead rests against her cast as she struggles to breathe.

It doesn’t mean anything.

It can’t.

“Hello? Who is this?” The casual tone Bobbi answered with is melting away, replaced by a threatening one.

“Bobbi?” Jemma asks.

“Simmons!” There’s something to her tone, like she’s speaking for someone other than just Jemma.

But that’s not so odd, is it? If any of the others are in the room with her, they’ll want to know it’s her.

“Simmons, is that you? Talk to me. Where are you?”

“Yes,” Jemma says. There are tears welling in her eyes. The fear of the last few minutes is breaking. She’s been silly. This is _Bobbi_. “I’m here. Where are the others? I’ve been trying but no one’s answering.”

“Where are you?”

It could be that it’s the most pertinent question. That could be all it is. But Jemma’s mind seizes on the brief hesitation that precedes it.

She shifts in place but doesn’t lift her head, mindful suddenly of the security cameras overhead. “Where’s Fitz? He must be worried sick, let me talk to him.”

There it is again, that hesitation, and this time Jemma also recognizes the tone in Bobbi’s voice as that she uses when she’s speaking to a civilian mark. “Fitz is in the garage, working with Mack on the quinjet. I’m in Coulson’s office, it’ll be a couple minutes. Why don’t you tell me where you are so we can get a team mobilized-”

“Bobbi,” Jemma cuts in sternly. “Why haven’t any of the others been answering? I called Coulson’s _direct line_.”

In the background, Jemma hears a curse. She doesn’t recognize the voice, but she does recognize that she’s been put on speaker.

She counts back. It won’t take them long to trace this call. She has seconds. “Are you HYDRA?” she asks. She has to know.

“ _No_ ,” Bobbi says. “Simmons, I swear to you, we’re on your side. Just tell us-”

Jemma hangs up. Calmly, with no force or anger. She picks up her bag and shoulders it. Her feet move for the nearest exit while her head remains directed downward. She digs aimlessly through her bag as an excuse to keep her face out of view until she’s certain she’s clear of the building’s cameras.

Once she knows they can’t see her any longer, she runs.

 


End file.
